


after the war

by Savorybreakfasts



Series: Tumblr prompts and ficlets [8]
Category: Star Trek: Deep Space Nine
Genre: Kidfic, M/M, Post-Canon Cardassia
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-24
Updated: 2018-04-24
Packaged: 2019-04-27 12:44:27
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 408
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14425677
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Savorybreakfasts/pseuds/Savorybreakfasts
Summary: Wrote this intending to start a sequel to Some of the Buds, but realized I probably won’t have time for awhile so it’s going up as is.





	after the war

They struggled over bringing the kids to Cardassia after the war. The same arguments followed them to bed at night and greeted them in the morning, mutating, switching sides, and tangling, until they were a jumble of words and feelings— not children anymore—still our children—former war zone—her background—what about his—they want to go—we’re needed there—maybe I could go without you—too new to separate—what about their education…and underlying all of it the constant rhythm of will-they-be-safe-will-they-be-safe.

In the end, of course, they went. They had sunshine, and regova hens, and Mila the regnar the second. They learned to eat without a replicator and entertain themselves when the power was shut off every night to the residential areas. Vero apprenticed himself to a local builder; Garak worried about the lack of formal education but Julian told him to leave it. Orkide brought her instruments and a solar-powered recording and playback device that Kira had found for her on Bajor, and commissioned Vero to build her a small studio next to the henhouse. It reminded Garak of Tolan’s shed, and he liked to linger outside, listening to her play.

There also was terror. The anti-Federation riots left them shaken. They had not been targeted, perhaps because Garak sat in front of the house each night, radiating a menacing calm. There were patients who wouldn’t let Julian touch them, and Vero was frequently grateful that the headscarf he wore for protection from the sun and sand also kept pedestrians from looking too closely at his face. Garak and Julian knew there were things he didn’t tell them, but they believed him that he felt safe—safer than he had in the walls of the orphanage, safer than living on the streets of Bajor.

Orkide spent far too much time in her studio shed; the secondary schools had not yet been rebuilt, and much of the generation that would have attended them were gone. Julian had brought her to the clinic one day and asked a nurse to supervise her efforts to help. The next morning she had refused to return, and wouldn’t talk to anyone for two days. She loved the sunshine of Cardassia but not much else, and spent her time with her family or the hens and the regnar.

So it came as a relief, as well as a sadness, when she began to prepare audition holos for conservatories off-world.

**Author's Note:**

> Wrote this intending to start a sequel to Some of the Buds, but realized I probably won’t have time for awhile so it’s going up as is.


End file.
